WASHINGTON — Bruce Holmes, 65, grew up fishing on the Anacostia River, a 9-mile (14-kilometer) urban waterway that flows through Washington, D.C. and parts of Maryland, and has long been defined by pollution and neglect.
Washington, D.C
In Washington, D.C., the city’s ‘forgotten river’ cleans up, slowly
“There wasn’t no throwing it back in,” Holmes said, “Whatever we caught we ate. Or we sold.”
Now, decades later, Holmes no longer eats what he catches from the Anacostia as he’s learned more about the river, but teaches adults and children in the capital how to fish as the river undergoes something of a comeback. He hopes the fishing lessons double as a clarion call to help clean up and maintain the river he grew up around.
Sometimes called D.C.’s “forgotten river,” the Anacostia River is shorter, shallower and harder to navigate than the more famous Potomac, which cuts through the city’s storied landmarks and is steeped in Revolutionary and American Civil War history. For decades, the Anacostia was treated as a municipal dumping ground for industrial waste, storm sewers and trash. That contamination largely affected the communities of color that the river intersects.
In recent years, things have started to improve, but change has come slowly.
It’s still illegal to swim in the Anacostia because of E. coli levels that test above the threshold deemed safe for human exposure, but in recent years, a $3.29 billion sewer upgrade in D.C. has reduced sewage overflows into the river, keeping large amounts of waste out.
A series of tunnels drilled under the city capture storm and sewage water that previously flowed into the Anacostia. Since 2018, when the first segment went online, the upgrades have reduced outflows of sewage and wastewater by 91%, according to DC Water, the city’s water utility.
Last fall, the final section of the Anacostia Tunnel System went online. The overall system is expected to reduce overflows into the river by 98%.
Still, the Anacostia received a failing grade for the third time in six years last year from a nonprofit that grades the river’s health based on its fecal bacteria content and the state of its aquatic vegetation.
The Anacostia River Watershed tested the river for fecal bacteria, dissolved oxygen — needed by all aquatic animals — and algae levels, as well as the health of its aquatic vegetation and clarity of its water.
“The trend line is moving up,” said Chris Williams, director of the Anacostia River Watershed. “Twenty-five years ago, it was one of the most polluted rivers in the country,” he said, contrasting that to the past few years “where the water quality is pretty steadily improving.”
For many involved in the Anacostia’s clean-up, the history of the river, its neglect and industrial pollution are inextricable from the city’s racial history.
The river and the surrounding 1,200-acre (4.85-square kilometer) Anacostia River Park that reaches into parts of Maryland across the D.C. boundary were where communities of color swam, fished and recreated.
“Because there are low-income communities around the river, it can seem like they’re responsible for the pollution,” said Akiima Price, executive director of Friends of Anacostia Park, an organization that works in the communities surrounding the river.
“But it comes from everywhere, all over the watershed,” she said.
That was acknowledged last year when Pepco, the city’s utility, reached an agreement with the District of Columbia to pay more than $57 million for discharging hazardous chemicals from their power plants into soil, groundwater and storm sewers for decades that polluted the Anacostia and other areas. The settlement was believed to be the largest in the utility’s history.
The payments will be used in part to clean up the river, including addressing contamination from its former power plants. Other measures the city government instituted like a fee on plastic bags since 2009 have also helped keep trash out, experts say.
To Price, the work is ongoing. “There are still challenges,” she said, “but people feel more connected to the river.”
To help change long-held perceptions that the water is still as polluted as it once was, Anacostia Riverkeeper, another environmental nonprofit, has organized a swim event along a small stretch of the river designated safe for swimming.
This year’s event will take place at the end of June near Kingman Island, a patch of land in the middle of the river. If the event goes as planned, it would mark the first time in more than a half-century that D.C. residents could legally swim in the river, after the city prohibited doing so in any of its waterways in 1971. Last year, the same event was canceled after a storm raised bacteria levels in the river because of sewage overflows.
“It’s not lost on me that we’re overturning over 50 years of discourse about the river,” said Quinn Molner, operations director at Anacostia Riverkeeper. Around 200 people are expected to participate in the swim, Molner said, despite the skepticism her organization encountered when they first announced the event. “A lot of people that have lived in this area for a long time knew this river when it was not so great.”
Holmes is one of them. A lifelong resident of Southeast D.C., still a predominantly Black and less affluent part of the city, Holmes said he’s doubtful that in just a few years, the river in its entirety will be swimmable and fishable.
“That’s a little bit of a stretch,” he said, “but I can actually say, because I’ve been fishing out here for years, I’ve seen some big changes.”
The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment
Washington, D.C
Pleasant, spring-like weekend for Virginia, Maryland, DC ahead of active start to March
After one of the coldest winters in years, the DMV is ending the month of February, and meteorological winter, with a nice spring preview.
Temperatures will reach the low 60s area-wide Saturday afternoon under mostly sunny skies. A real treat for the final day of February, enjoy!
Sunday will bring a few changes as an active weather pattern begins to bring in March.
A cold front will slowly move through the area and be mostly starved of moisture. There is a chance at a spotty shower or two, but most stay dry under mostly cloudy skies.
Temperatures will drop throughout the day as the front moves through with most afternoon temperatures in the 50s falling to the 30s by nightfall.
European model forecast rainfall totals
This front will stall just to the south and be a focal point for several days of active weather next week around the DMV.
A wintry mix looks likely Monday with temperatures near freezing with little to no wintry precipitation accumulation, but a different story as that will then switch to all rain chances Tuesday through about Friday.
BE THE FIRST TO COMMENT
Stay tuned to the First Alert Weather team as they continue to monitor forecast trends heading into next week.
The expanded funding aims to make college more affordable for thousands of D.C. students, continuing a program that has already helped nearly 40,000 graduates pursue degrees nationwide.
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser went back to school on Thursday. She headed to the gym at Coolidge High School in Northwest to make an announcement that could make college more affordable for eligible D.C. high school students.
Standing at the podium in front of a vibrant mural in the gymnasium, Bowser told the students, “A few weeks ago we got some good news from the United States Congress!”
“Even they can get it right sometimes!” she added.
The news from Capitol Hill was that funding for the 25-year-old D.C. Tuition Assistance Grant program, or DCTAG, has been increased, something Bowser said she’s been working toward for 10 years.
Starting in the 2026-27 academic year, the maximum annual award for students who apply and qualify for the grants will go from $10,000 a year to as much as $15,000, and the overall cap increases from $50,000 to $75,000.
“These are real dollars guys, a real $15,000!” Bowser told the students. “This year alone, 4,500 students were approved for DCTAG, and that’s the highest number that we’ve had in the last five years.”
Since DCTAG was established, Bowser said nearly 40,000 D.C. high school students were serviced through the program, attaining degrees at more than 400 colleges across the country.
Among those who benefited from the DCTAG program was Arturo Evans, a local business owner who grew up in Ward 7 and graduated from D.C.’s Cesar Chavez Public Charter School.
Speaking to the Coolidge students, Evans explained that as a high school student, he didn’t know if his dreams would ever come true.
“Do your homework, go to class, be on time, listen to your teachers,” he said. “Do not let your current situation determine who you can be tomorrow.”
Evans said without the grant money available in the DCTAG program his college prospects would have been “very limited.”
“I probably would have stayed local, probably would have had to go to a community college,” he said.
But he told WTOP, since he applied for and received grant money through the program, “TAG was able to pave the way for me to go ahead and achieve my dreams and go to my dream school,” at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
While he was at UNLV, Evans said his mother’s illness meant he had to return to the District to help care for her. But thanks to help from his DCTAG adviser, he was able to complete his degree before becoming the CEO of his own D.C.-based business.
Among the Coolidge students attending the event was senior Victoria Evans (no relation to the speaker Arturo Evans), who also was in the DCTAG program and serves as the Command Sergeant Major of the Coolidge Junior Army ROTC.
Victoria Evans said she hopes to study medicine, and explained, “I found out about DCTAG through my school counselors and my college and career coordinators.”
Asked about the application process, she said, “It’s not hard at all. I would definitely say go and get the money they’re providing.”
D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton pushed to establish the funding when she introduced the D.C. College Access Act, which passed Congress in 1999. It was designed to address the fact that, since D.C. doesn’t have a state university system, D.C. students had limited access to in-state tuition at public colleges and universities.
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WASHINGTON (7News) — More than six months into the federal law enforcement surge in the District, questions remain about how the Metropolitan Police Department’s level of involvement in joint operations and what information the department tracks to ensure accountability.
Councilmember Brooke Pinto (D – Ward 2), chairwoman of the Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety, held an oversight hearing of three public safety agencies on Wednesday, including MPD.
The bulk of the 10.5-hour meeting focused on testimony from concerned residents and Interim Chief Jeffery Carroll about the police department.
“Interim Chief Carroll’s testimony provided a clearer sense of how the federal surge of officers is managed overall; however, many questions still remain regarding the ongoing investigations into the three federal agency involved shootings and how and where deployment decisions are being made and which agencies are handling arrests,” Pinto said in a statement to 7News.
At the same time, more residents are raising alarms about federal agencies responding to 911 calls. Carroll said it is not new for agencies such as the U.S. Park Police and the U.S. Secret Service to respond to those calls, but residents are concerned that other agencies are reportedly starting to show up as well.
SEE ALSO | DC Council committee holds oversight hearing on MPD
“When we say law enforcement in DC in 2026, who are we talking about, who’s there, what are they doing, what limits and regulations and oversight are they beholden to, and what recourse do residents have?” Bethany Young, director of policy at DC Justice Lab, told 7News.
“If you call 911, MPD is showing up,” Carroll testified Wednesday. “Can other agencies hear those calls that have those radio channels? Absolutely, they can. But MPD is being dispatched a call and MPD is responding.”
“You see now the uneasiness of some people calling for help,” Councilmember Christina Henderson (I – At-Large), responded to Carroll. “No, I definitely understand,” Carroll replied. “I’m not saying it’s a situation that we want to be in or where we want to be, but I want to make sure that we’re transparent and clear on what the state is right now. That’s what the state is.”
Requests for comment were sent to the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office and the mayor’s office about Carroll’s testimony. The mayor did not make herself available for questions at a public event on Thursday.
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